Bill to open travellers’ sites could reach £3m

Improving and reopening travellers’ sites in South Cambridgeshire is costing taxpayers more than £3 million.

The bill was slammed as “completely outrageous” by one councillor who said he feared the district was carrying a disproportionate burden, and comes as top Conservatives try to push through the reopening of the Mettle Hill site in Meldreth.

South Cambridgeshire District Council had already secured £900,000 of Government funding to refurbish the Blackwell travellers’ site at Milton, and these works were completed earlier this year.

The council has won another £500,000 of Government funding which it proposes to use to reopen Mettle Hill, which was closed in 1996 when it became a hotbed for crime and vandalism.

Now cabinet papers have revealed the council also plans to use another £900,000 of Government funding to improve the pitches at Whaddon – which will have to be matched by a £750,000 contribution from the council.

Cllr Robin Page, who represents Haslingfield and the Eversdens, said the bill was “completely outrageous”.

He said: “For a country just out of recession, this is madness.

“It’s just remarkable to me that we seem to allow travellers in when we haven’t got any money and when we haven’t got the facilities.

“We know a lot of Irish travellers have property in Ireland and, if they have, that’s where they should be.”

Cllr Mark Howell, the district council’s cabinet member for housing, said the council’s own outlay would be recouped from rental income.

He said: “We are beginning to invest up to £300 million in building new council houses, and it is only right we also invest in providing new pitches for growing traveller families currently living in the district.

“Travellers are our largest ethnic minority in the district and the Government grant we have secured will help us meet our legal duty to provide sufficient accommodation for travellers.

“It is important to remember that it is currently costing taxpayers and landowners thousands of pounds each year to deal with travellers who are parked up illegally on private land or at the side of the road.